Refundplease.com is a great little website that will monitor specific Amazon items and email you when the price goes lower than when you originally purchased it.   In their own words:

“There are a number of online retailers that offer to credit buyers back cash on past purchases. For instance, if the product you purchased at Amazon.com within the last 30 days has dropped in price they will credit you back the difference”

Before stumbling upon this site, I never even knew that Amazon had a 30-day price protection policy.  When Refundplease.com notifies you of a price drop, they give you a direct link to the Amazon customer service contact page making things all that much easier.

I entered a bunch of purchases in that I made leading up to the holidays and yesterday I was notified that one of the items was cheaper!  I contacted customer service per the instructions and here was the email I received from Amazon within 24 hours:

“Thank you for writing to Amazon.com.

The discounts we offer for items on our web site do vary from time
to time. I’ve checked your order, and found that we now offer a
greater discount on ” A Photographer’s Life: 1990-2005 (Hardcover) ”
than at the time you placed your order.

Since this item was shipped so recently, I have requested a refund
of $0.01 to your credit card. This amount reflects the difference
between the price you were charged and the discounted price. The
refund should be processed in the next few days and will appear as a
credit on your next billing statement. “

Yes, you got it. I actually requested a refund for 1 cent Frankly, I’m shocked Amazon is processing a refund for such a low amount, but this shows that they live up to their 30 day guarantee

2 days ago I raved about how much I liked the iPhone after Jobs’ Macworld 2007 announcement.  After thinking about it and reading more coverage, the so-called reality distortion field has passed and I’m not feelin’ the iPhone like I previously did.  Call me wishy-washy, but it’s true.  Omar and Torres have both discussed it at great length, and I agree with most of their points.  I’m not going as far as Torres and saying I won’t buy this phone, but there are enough things that concern me about it to at least delay my purchase for a significant amount of time.

After reading Mike’s post, here’s my response:

1. Access to my corporate data over the air – Agree that if this functionality doens’t exist, the device is also a non-starter for me.  However, we haven’t heard definitively that this won’t be possible so let’s keep our fingers crossed.
2. EDGE network speed — while Mike finds Edge “so slow it’s almost unusable for browsing”, I woudl have to disagree. After moving to the Samsung Blackjack recently which sports 3G HSDPA connection, I find myself in Edge-only mode to presrve battery life.  For what I normally browse (yahoo mail, rss feeds, engadget), Edge is clearly slower than 3G/EVDO, but not a deal breaker.
3. Too expensive? People are continually saying this device is too expensive, but I’m still on the fence.  $500-$600 for this device isn’t as outlandish as people claim it is given it’s a full blow iPod but also a phone.  Considering iPods are $200-$300 and phones alone can go upwards of $300, the iPhone price point is right there.  Admittedly, once you factor in the fact that Cingular should be subsizing the price since they are going to lock you into a 2 year contract, you gotta wonder whether Cingular is subsizing anything at all.
4. Touchscreen interface – I was really keen on this originally, but now, I’m going to have to agree with the skeptics.  It looks freakin’ cool, but after you factor in screen scratches and smudges along with the lack of any tactile response, this device could be an absolute nightmare.
5. Closed system – I was all hyped up about the iPhone running full blown OSX since it meant that app developers wouldn’t have to really do much to refactor their apps other than accomodating smaller screen size (unless the iPhone did some clever UI scaling).  But turns out that the iPhone will be a closed platform just like the iPod.   WTF Apple. Haven’t you learned anything at all from anyone else in the industry? Why do you keep doing this?

Other than a cool form factor, the only thing that the iPhone does for me, is allows me to ditch my standalone iPod altogether.  I would always have my ipod on me which would be ultra-convenient, but then again, this means I always have to carry my headphones.  I just know I’d end up in a situation where I have my iPhone with no headphones to listen to music. 

The teedot jury is still out on whether the iPhone will be a winner or not, but what’s certain is that I’m not going to rush out and buy this thing.

Aside from booth duty, I unfortunately still haven’t been able to hit the CES 2007 show floor due to work I’m doing from the hotel room and conference calls with Redmond :(  Hopefully I’ll be able to hit it before my shift this afternoon, or tommorow during the day before my flight.  I’ll be hugely disappointed if my only exposure to the CES gadget love is through Engadget or CNet.

One piece of big news I found out this morning that Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) is now tax deductible.  Whether you like him or not, President Bush signed a bill that could positively affect over a million homeowners this year.

This is huge news for homebuyers, since previously, there was significant impact when you chose home financing where your primary lender was providing a mortgage of more than 80% LTV (e.g. 90/10 or 95/5).  When your primary/first-mortgage lender provides more than 80% you must pay PMI and that payment is not tax deductible.  PMI is essentially insurance payed to the lender for taking on extra risk by financing more than 80% of your loan.  Once your equity in the home exceeds 20% (your downpayment + increase in property value), PMI no longer applies. In other words, you can eventaully cancel PMI assuming your property value does not decrease at a higher rate than your payments.  Traditional ways of avoiding PMI is to seek a HELOC to couple with your down payment seed for 20% (and thus the primary lender is still at 80% LTV).

Why this was important in the past was because paying PMI meant that that a portion of your monthly payment was not tax deductible, and can be anywhere from 0.23% to 0.78% of the total loan amount (amortized over the loan period). 

Buyers were left with 2 decisions:

1. Take higher LTV than 80% (e.g. 90/10 or 95/5) and incur PMI hit.  Result is that PMI portion of monthly payment is not tax deductible year-end.
2. Take 80% LTV, and combine own funding with alternative source (e.g. HELOC) for remaining 20%.  This avoids PMI and thus more of your monthly payment is tax deductible.  One downside of this option is that the HELOC is almost always at a higher rate than your primary mortgage.

The difference between options 1 and 2 above were usually obscure enough to first-time buyers that the full tax impact didn’t hit them until the mortgage terms were completed and payments have already began.

As of January 1, 2007, PMI is now 100% tax deductible so this changes the game considerably and provides buyers more flexibility. Everyone faced with a PMI vs. HELOC decision should do a total cost analysis to determine which option is more beneficial (paying PMI but deducting it year-end OR avoiding PMI but paying higher rate on a second loan like a HELOC). 

Generally speaking, it’s likely that the PMI option with tax deductibility will be more expensive in the short term.  However, since PMI can be cancelled (like I mentioned previously) after your equity increases to more than 20%, PMI option can be cheaper in the mid and long term.  With a HELOC (aka “piggyback loan”) option, you are stuck paying it until it’s paid off.

Factors that will affect your decision (and total cost calculation):

1. New tax law only applies if your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) is less than $100,000
2. It is only in affect for 2007. The bill must be re-signed for 2008 and every year following (unless the bill is amended to approve it multi-year).
3. What is your primary loan interest rate of the primary loan vs. HELOC?
4. What is the PMI payment/percentage?  How long until you expect your equity stake to be more than 20%?
5. What is your tax bracket and where you sit in that tax bracket (e.g. extra deductions may reduce your highest tax seat)?

Macworld 2007 kicked off today with the Steve Jobs keynote.  Apple definitely delivered on the anticipated hype by delivering on the iPhone:

As always, if you want full covereage do a search or check out Engadget. Why the iPhone is freakin’ cool in tee dot’s book:

• All-in-one device – Cellphone and iPod combined into a single device. Finally I can get rid of burden of carrying my smartphone and iPod at the same time, which means I”ll always have my ipod with me.
• 11.6mm thick — thinner than the Motorola Q and even my new Samsung Blackjack.
• Runs full blown OSX – 3rd party app creation will be far simpler for developers.  No need to scale down apps? woah.
• Proximity sensor — turns off screen and touchscreen interface when it’s close to your face
• World phone enabled – Quad-band GSM
• Push-IMAP Yahoo email — This freakin’ rocks since I use Yahoo as my primary email provider.  I’ve been using them for nearly 5 years and the pain of changing my primary email address is big enough to stop me from doing it
• 4GB and 8GB storage – priced at $499 and $599.   Pricey for a cell phone alone, but considering this double as an iPod, it’s a little more justifiable. But still… $500?!  Will be interesting to see if (1) Cingular reduces the price based on contract, and/or (2) it’s unlocked.  I can’t imaine Cingular agreeing to carry an unlocked device despite the rumours. 
• Google maps integration – I wub Windows Live Maps more, but tight integration with Google Maps is never a bad thing.
• Available through Cingular – since this is my carrier, it’s obviously a good thing

Other minor features I love:

• Visual voicemail — I absolutely hate voicemail since triage is so difficult. This almost makes it palattable.
• SMS conversations – I’m an SMS junkie and showing my SMS exchange in a conversation form is an obvious enhancement. I love it.

I do love my Windows Mobile devices (and my new Samsung Blackjack), but am absolutely in love with the iPhone already.  Gotta love how Apple keeps pushing us.  Always an advantage when you build the hardware along with the Software, which is one of the reasons Microsoft has been so succesful with the Xbox 360  and will be succesful with the Zune.

I’m skiddish on the “multi-touch” UI, as I’m a big fan of the tactile response from a keypad.  I guess I’ll either have to wait for an in-depth review, or just take the plunge and score one when they are available from Cingular in June 2007.

I woke up just past noon yesterday, desperate to get some z’s to fight my onset sickeness.  Another few nights of good rest and I’ll have kicked this, but by then CES will be over :) 

I crunched some email and breezed through some docs after waking up, then headed to the LVCC to meet up with Aseem to kick off our innaugural CES 2007 booth duty.  Our booth is in the middle of the huge “Windows Vista” area, smack dab between IE7 and Office 2007 Business Contact Manager.

Our shift was 4 hours, and we had some great opportunities to pimp Windows Marketplace.  People’s reaction were all very positive, especially when we showed the value of The Digital Locker.  

When you’re working a 4 hour shift  you get a crazy assortment of peeps coming by the booth, many confused on what we were showing.  It certainly wasn’t their fault, because all our signs say “Windows Vista” and “Windows Marketplace” in much small font beneath it. So on quick glance, everyone assumes we’re only showcasing Vista.  We had to redirect people to the right booth over and over again.

When working a booth at a show like CES, you quickly encounter a species of humans, that I have officially named “Giveaway Gorgers” or GG for short (trademark is pending).  I approximate the occurence of GGs in the convention population to be as high as 1 in 8 in conferences like TechEd.  At CES however, this number has to be as high as 1 in 4.  The tell-tale trait of a GG can be seen in the eyes; constant scanning of the CES show-floor for giveaways without any attention to what product or service it applies to.  The secondary trait is either a huge shoulder sack stuffed with other giveaways or equivalently stuffed rolling luggage.  Of course, both carry-alls must be emblazoned with either XM or Toshiba.

At the Windows Marketplace booth, we are giving away booklights and these odd electronic dice that are activated by motion.  Nothing like re-affirming the Vegas gambling lifestyle!  GGs would come to the booth and not score one, but 2, 3 or even 4 dice!  After feeling continually ransacked for the first 3 hours of our shift, I attempted a GG experiment. 

Trial #1:

I first layed out 5 dice as shown:

then timed how long it took for the first one to be taken, then how long it took them all to be taken.  Turns out that I didn’t have to wait long, since one person took all 5.  This messed up the timings needed for my experiement.

Trial #2:

I layed out another 5 dice but I needed to ensure I reduced the variability in layout as a possible disturber to the experiment.  So I layed out the dice in the exact same pattern as in Trial #1 using the image captured on my smartphone for reference:

First dice was snagged in 13 seconds, and remaining 4 were gone in within 45 seconds.

Trial #3:

My suspicion is that while GGs want to horde as many giveaways as possible, they don’t want to intrude too much on the exhibitors.  That is, my hypothesis was that if the giveaways are stacked in some orderly manner, GGs would be slower to take the giveaways.  Based on this, I arranged 5 dice as follows:

This arrangement stayed for over 15 mins.  I waited another 10 mins before reverting the experiment to the arrangement used in Trial #1.  Within 5 seconds, this was left:

Summary of results: While GGs are rampant at CES, their behaviour is contrained and controlled by orderly arranged giveaways.  While unsubstantiated, I suspect that a pyramidal arrangement may be a bigger deterent than other arrangements.